Nearly everyone knew it from the outset, so it came as no surprise when West Dunbartonshire Council leader Martin Rooney finally let the cat out of the bag on the Postie’s Park controversy.

If the council has its way the new Our Lady and St Patrick’s High School will be built on valuable green space and blight the amenity of Levengrove Park in Dumbarton.

Councillor Rooney has publicly wished the community a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Then, in the duplicitous way only politicians can, he has gone on to steal the contents of the seasonal stockings hung over the end of the bed.

He thinks we are all asleep.

Either that or he thinks we are all stupid.

The results of the contentious consultation on the building of the school on the council’s preferred site will be made public today (Wednesday).

It is revealed the council went out of its way to consult all the people they expected would agree with them – the Archdiocese, the head teacher, the staff and the “school communities”.

With breathtaking understatement, Cllr Rooney says that “as expected there has been SOME public interest in the issue”.

Every one of you out there knows this proposal has been the talk of the Glueworks – the biggest, most heavily publicised and talked about issue in this community for years.

Cllr Rooney has done a breakdown of the numbers involved and had he still been at school I think his maths teacher would be having a word him.

How is this for obfuscation, for making the impenetrable even more opaque?

Cllr Rooney writes: “Roughly one third of these (that’s 500) supported building a school on the current site, another third supported building the school on Posties Park, and the other third expressed a variety of views, including the 123 individuals who responded to say ‘not Posties Park’.”

He implies that the people who oppose the siting of the school on Posties stole an unfair march on the council by starting their campaign “before the actual formal consultation began”.

He then demeans the grounds for their objections, writing: “They highlighted a variety of concerns such as the risks of landslides, the potential of finding unexploded bombs, the lack of lifebelts at the Quay and the potential drowning of teenagers incapable of crossing a footbridge and schoolchildren rampaging through Levengrove Park.”

Machiavellian is not the word for it. Martin is a Master of the Misquote.

He is accusing people of saying things they never said.

What he should be doing is questioning the highly paid officials who didn’t tell the council about the history of landslides; the “at your own risk” notices for people using the Quay, and the fact that teenagers under stress sometimes don’t behave impeccably with disastrous consequences when they are crossing bridges over fast flowing rivers.

Cllr Rooney refers briefly to some of the very real drawbacks – the fact that this proposal is contrary to the local plan, the unsuitable roads access to the site and the cost of a new footbridge merely as “challenges”. Being an ex-military man, Martin then puts his size five into the people who would like to see Posties preserved.

He claims they are neither reasonable nor respectful and they are using this issue for their own ends – “for some it has been little more than an opportunity to peddle their own narrow agenda, often misrepresenting professional officers of the council and elected members who are simply carrying out the work directed by the education committee”.

I wonder who was at his elbow when he was writing that nonsense.

Cllr Rooney maintains this is “an educational issue” when it is plain from the uproar in the public square that it is nothing of the kind.

He claims that he and his Labour Party colleagues have been “absolutely consistent” in their approach to this matter.